The Nine Cylinder Saab Steam Engine

18 Responses to “The Nine Cylinder Saab Steam Engine”

1. 

   Drew
   

   04. Apr, 2008

   Very cool! I love all the stuff you find and write about.

   Reply to this comment
2. 

   Erich Haun
   

   04. Apr, 2008

   fail.

   Reply to this comment
3. 

   iamchris
   

   04. Apr, 2008

   Cool story, thanks for sharing!

   Reply to this comment
4. 

   saab96
   

   04. Apr, 2008

   ” it required no fossil fuels and included zero emissions carbon emissions.”

   So what was the power source??

   Reply to this comment
5. 

   brent
   

   13. Dec, 2009

   BMW makes a latent heat battery to warm the engine in the morning. This battery could also be used to pre warm the boiler water.

   Reply to this comment
6. 

   Ryan
   

   13. Dec, 2009

   Brent,

   Hello. That’s a great idea, then no petroleum products would ever need to be used!

   Would the battery be charged as a plug-in?

   R

   Reply to this comment
7. 

   Ryan
   

   13. Dec, 2009

   Brent,

   Hello. That could be a better way to ensure no petroleum products are used at all.

   Good thinking.

   R

   Reply to this comment
8. 

   will
   

   29. Jul, 2010

   um…did you read the article? the battery that brent is refering to is just for PRE warming the water. This would mean less time to get going, especially if the water were below 40 degrees F. ..although I am not missing your sarcasm ryan, any ediot should know we get our electricity from fossil fuel (mainly)…some places have hydro and wind power as well. Yes, there would be fossil fuel type emissions, in order to create pressure with STEAM one must create steam. How does one get steam…?…heating water with another fuel source. This is where carbon emissions will happen, but according to the article only minimal amounts of fossil fuels are needed…as for the main exhaust, steam is the biproduct. as we all should know steam is just water vapor.

   Reply to this comment
9. 

   alessio215
   

   28. Dec, 2011

   we are still with thraditional otto engines thanks to the Americans.
   If the americans didn’t stick the nose in everything.
   we would be 40 years ahead of now

   Reply to this comment
10. 

    Sam
    

    01. May, 2013

    Steam engines actually require a fair amount of fuel. In a typical steam engine (and the SAAB unit qualifies as typical) oils are burned in a steam generator (boiler) and most of the heat is transferred to the steam which, upon entering the cylinders or turbine expands, transferring some energy to the drive shaft. The expanded steam flows to t condenser, where it throws away the remaining heat. The advantage of steam is that oils such as gasoline are better at heating tubes than they are at exploding inside an engine, so you make a bit more use chemical energy. A significant advantage is that steam engines have so much torque that they can drive wheels more directly than ICEs (which naturally require transmissions to match engine speed to road speed). It’s also easy to reduce heat losses with extra plumbing and insulation, improving fuel economy further. Theoretical fuel economy is great with steam, but not magical, and steam cars would have vastly different maintenance needs. I prefer them in concept to ICEs, but I understand how they work and why we don’t see them on the road.

    Reply to this comment
    • 

      Baba
      

      14. May, 2014

      Sam, what do you mean by ”different maintenance needs”? You seem to imply that these would be more expensive. Let me do a brief analysis.

      These evolved steam engines (that built upon the paradigm of the 1920s Doble car engines) do make use of some expensive components – e.g. the ”boiler”, i.e. the steam generator. has to make use of expensive materials to provide effective usage and longevity, then you have the condenser but all these costs are countered by the cost reduction that standardization and mass production would render as well as the ease of assembly. IC gazoline and diesel engines are ultra-complicated and have 1000s more of pretty expensive components too so their ”cheap price” is only down to a massive production and long-standing standardization. Maintenace for an IC engine is yearly or every 20,000 km while for a steam car it would be once or twice per decade. Primitive steam engines run in factories in the 19th century for 5 decades with minimal to no maintenance so it is valid to argue that a well designed well produced evolved steam engine in a car would not require more maintenance than once every 5 years.

      The only ”valid” problem with the steam engine is this :

      1) It is a more simply technology that once set to go can be copied and reproduced easily pretty much by anyone (auto manufacturers do not like losing control of their market)
      2) It provides the freedom of choice on fuel and of course offers noticeably reduced consumptions (oil companies do not like giving you the freedom to reduce or eliminate your dependence on them)
      3) They break less frequently than gasoline cars thus requiring less reworks (also reworks can be done by technicians with materials other than those provided by the company) – (again, auto manufacturers do not like this).

      That is the problem with steam engine : it is a superior engine but it disrupts the ”cosy” market of many.

      Reply to this comment
11. 

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    18. Oct, 2013

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12. 

    Flynn
    

    01. Jan, 2014

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13. 

    http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/User:Berxa85
    

    02. Jan, 2014

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14. 

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    21. Feb, 2014

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15. 

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    11. Jul, 2014

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